How to hide and Un-hide Hidden files in Finder for Mac

There may come a time when you need to show the hidden files in Finder. This is something that you may not have to do very often but when you do don’t forget to hide the files again. This is also nothing new if you have used a Mac for a while but it’s one of those things that if you don’t do it very often it’s easily forgotten.

The Terminal can be found a few different ways. You can search for it in Spotlight, You can open the Finder and go to your Apps folder then go to the Utilities folder then scroll down to its location or (if your on Lion) you can go to Mission Control and open Utilities and then open Terminal.

I would also suggest copying and pasting the text opposed to typing it in so there is no mistake to the command working.

Here’s how to show Hidden Files-

1. Open the Terminal.

2. Type in this text and hit the Return key after each command.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

Then type in:

killall Finder

Here How to Hide Hidden files after you have shown them-

1. Open Terminal

2. Type in:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

Then type in:

killall Finder

and now then files will be hidden again.